• No-Sew Knitting • Knitting in the Round • Knitting From the Top Down

Thursday, 28 March 2013

How many shapes of sweaters have you tried knitting? What shapes are your favourite to wear, hand knitted or bought off the rack?

A-Line shaping where the bottom is wider than the bust in a gradual way.

A Straight sweater where the width is equal all the way down.

An Hourglass sweater with waist shaping.

A Modified A-line which accomodates the hips.

Have I missed any? I have every one of these shapes in my wardrobe, as you probably do too. My favourite to knit is the Modified A-line where I make the hip about 3" wider than the bust, because I need to if I want to button it up. But I do love the A-line shape so the striped cardigan I'm knitting is going to be that shape.

Tuesday, 26 March 2013

This Top Down has a squarer neckline than a standard raglan,though not perfectly square. The back of the neck is 7" wide and the cast on for the sleeves is 4" wide. A more standard sleeve width would be 1"-2" wide. This changes the neckline, making it a wider rectangle and gives a nice drop to the front and back of the neckline without any fancy short row shaping.

The stripes are continuing. I'm finding that this is a cheerful knit. I smile while I'm knitting.

More Mittlets. Terry came to our Mariposa knit club this morning with her version of the mittlets.

She worked a lace pattern down the back of the hand in two different yarns, as you can see. But she went a litte further . . .

and ran the lace pattern up the thumb. Nice, very nice. All that from a plain mittlet pattern in stockinette stitch. A great idea.
- deb

Thursday, 21 March 2013

Why choose to work with stripes in 3 colours? Two colours are easier to choose and easier to work, right?

But there is a beauty to working with 3 colours. The yarn is carried up both edges of your work when working back and forth. For my cardigan, worked top down in one piece, I will carry the yarn down both front edges which will make these front edges even. If I'm a little tight with the yarn carries, I'll be tight on both sides. And picking up the Front bands hides the yarn carries and evens up the Front edges even more.

Also, I don't have to keep track of which colour is coming up next. Once I get going, the colour I need is ready to be worked when I get to the end of each stripe.

Starting from the top, I work 3 rows of light blue, back and forth in stockinette stitch, and drop the yarn. Now work with the dark blue yarn, work 3 rows and drop the yarn.The last stripe is in black and after working 3 rows the yarn is dropped on the edge on the right side of my sample. When I look at my work, the light blue yarn is dangling right there waiting it's turn. I can carry the yarn down and begin my next light blue stripe. No thinking, no mistakes. It's magic.

With 3 colours I think you could work any combination of odd numbered rows and it would all work out - 1 x 1 x 1 row, 1 x 3 x 5 rows, 3 x 1 x 3 rows, 7 x 3 x 5 rows, fat stripes, thin stripes. It may be endless, have fun.

Sunday, 17 March 2013

Spring is in the air, even though yesterday it snowed a ton and we're back to below freezing weather. Never the less, I'm quite sure it will arrive sometime soon. So I'm knitting myself a spring sweater based on the Summer-time Top from the Button Up Your Top Down book (striped top in centre row).

It begins at the top with a square neck and 3 colours. It has a picked up buttonband so I can put lots of small buttons on it. I'm going to make the sleeves narrower and 3/4 length. I want to put in some body shaping and am leaning towards A-line shaping and a longer length. Then it could be worn as a cardigan or as a buttoned up tunic over capris or summer pants. Then I'll write it up as a pattern. Let's Begin.

I thought I would write this pattern up into the larger Plus sizes. It could easily be knit in one colour but I must say, the stripes are fun to knit. Are stripes a fashtion no, no? Do you wear them?
-Deb

Thursday, 14 March 2013

Junebug859 has added cables to the back of her mittlet. Nice, tight cables make a distinct pattern. They look great.

How about adding some bling? Barb added beads to the Little Poncho pattern.

"Here’s the poncho with my sweet granddaughter Clara wearing it. I used the Czech glass beads interspersed in the broad band at the bottom." Barb. [Doesn't Clara look happy? Ed.note]

Adding Beads. There's an idea!Add Beads wherever you want: Knit the stitch where you want to place the bead. Pinch the knit stitch off the Right needle, insert crochet hook into the hole of the bead and pull the knit stitch through the hole. Place the beaded knit stitch back onto the Right needle.

Monday, 11 March 2013

I got some wonderful feedback on the mittlets (2 posts back) and the Challenge. The increase didn't cause anyone any problems, phew. The Challenge was to make up a 8-stitch pattern for the back of the mittlets to see how they would turn out.

Thursday, 7 March 2013

I'm working on my class for the YarnOver SleepOver Retreat, April 12-14. The idea is similar to the Challenge in the last post and the talk I did at the Kawartha knitting guild. There is a theme here that I've been working on.

A Basic pattern, and we all have some in our libraries, has a lot of possibilities that you can't see in the photo. If you can take a step away from the written pattern, just a tiny step, there are many options available to you from every Basic pattern you own. What do you see here?

Small projects with acres and acres of stockinette stitch. What could we do with all those stitches? Could we put a cable in there, a texture pattern, maybe some lace, how about a stitch pattern you make up yourself? We'll talk about what we might do, how we could do it and have some fun thinking up as many wild and crazy ways to decorate as we can. It's sounding like a good time to me.

-Deb

If you're interested in a weekend away and can join us, here's the info YarnOver SleepOver Retreat . I can't wait to see what we come up with.

Monday, 4 March 2013

This is a mittlet pattern I'm going to put in the Accessory Book we're working on now. There are instructions for both versions: a Basic (stockinette stitch mittlet) or a Patterned mittlet (with a pattern up the centre back). Would you like to try it out and tell me what you think of it? In the book it will be in many gauges but for now it's really quick to knit in chunky weight yarn.
It has an interesting increase which you may or may not like, let me know. You could substitute the easier Kf/b increase if it's a problem.
And if you can catch any errors please let me know. (If you print this off it's about 6 pages but watch that you don't continue to print the 5 posts that follow it, that's a lot of paper.)

CHALLENGE: The challenge I gave the Kawartha Hooks and Needles Guild was to make up their own 8-stitch pattern. Have a go. There's an empty chart at the bottom. You can make your stitch pattern any number of rows high. Send me a photo of the mittlet with your own stitch pattern on it. I'd love to post them.